Cheating is one of the biggest sins in esports, and Counter-Strike 2 is no exception. However, most cheaters meet their bans in regular matchmaking, while bans on the professional scene are rare. But that doesn’t mean they don’t happen. Today, CS.MONEY Blog will tell you about the most epic bans in the Counter-Strike professional scene.
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Oleksandr s1mple Kostylev
Everyone knows who s1mple is. But back in the days, even he managed to get into something weird.
On February 1, 2014 Kostylev got a ban from ESL for cheating. It didn’t stop him, however, from getting the ESPN Esports Awards “Moment of The Year” in 2017, “Player of the Year” according to Stockholm International Esports Awards in 2018, “PC Esports Player of the Year” in 2018 from Esports Awards, many HLTV Top-1s and a CS:GO Major.
Kostylev did get a lot of controversial rep for using cheats, switching teams a lot, and losing his temper and shouting at teammates (and using a lot of hate speech on Twitter). On the other hand, the public did learn from interviews that he spends money helping sick children and hands over a lot of his winnings to his parents. He also admitted cheating was a mistake:
“I just don’t like the way some players in the team play; they make a lot of mistakes to which one can’t react in a calm way. I’m not saying that someone is better, someone is worse, but for me, it is still not clear: how, having spent so much time playing this game, one cannot understand ordinary things … if I offended anyone, I’m sorry … I do not consider myself the best player in the world or in a team, I am simply self-confident and I try to become the best, but at the moment I am not the best. I made a mistake 2 years ago, having played with cheats, and it spoiled my career. I read and understand all your hatred for me.”
CS:GO’s Best Player has been there but got lucky.
iBUYPOWER and NetcodeGuides
Probably pretty much everyone knows what happened here. On August 20, 2014, iBUYPOWER played against NetcodeGuides.com and lost 4-16. Long story short, it was proven to be a fixed match. And it all would have gone unnoticed if it weren’t for Richard Lewis. The journalist, who was actually as good at his job as the rest should have been, instead of just dismissing what happened, investigated and pretty much proved that the game was rigged.
There was plenty of evidence of the team betting against themselves (!) and then deliberately losing. It turned out, after an investigation, that two players, cud and dboorN, got involved into match-fixing and made their teammates do it, too. Here’s Valve’s statement, forever set in stone so people would know:
We can confirm, by investigating the historical activity of relevant accounts, that a substantial number of high valued items won from that match by Duc “cud” Pham were transferred ( via Derek “dboorn” Boorn ) to iBUYPOWER players and NetCodeGuides founder, Casey Foster…Performing before an audience of millions of fans, they are ambassadors for their game – the strength of professional Counter-Strike comes from the integrity of its players and teams.
Altogether, the information we have collected and received makes us uncomfortable continuing any involvement with these individuals. Therefore we will be directing our CS:GO event partners to not allow any of the following individuals’ participation in any capacity in Valve-sponsored events:
- Duc “cud” Pham
- Derek “dboorn” Boorn
- Casey Foster
- Sam “Dazed” Marine
- Braxton “swag” Pierce
- Keven “AZK” Larivière
- Joshua “Steel” Nissan”
The players got indefinite bans. On July 24, 2017, ESL unbanned them from ESL and ESEA, and a couple of months later DreamHack did the same thing as well. A happy ending, right? Not actually, as pretty much ever single pro player’s dream is to play at a Major and that’s exactly the place you will get the most money from (thanks to stickers mostly). But these guys can’t play Valve events anymore, so…
Immortals and North
At Grand Final of DreamHack Open Montreal, Immortals got in trouble for turning up late for the match. It was because of one of the most popular players around, Vito “kNgV” Giuseppe. Immortals, who come from Brazil, and Denmark’s North, were to play in the finals in 2017. Immortals turned up later and got a forfeit loss on the first map. They lost the next map and came second. But it cost them more than just the match.
Polygon, who calls this incident “one of the biggest scandals in CS:GO history”, reports:
“While being late, and forfeiting one map in the finals might be bad, Immortals didn’t deem Kng’s behavior suspension-worthy. The organization instead fined its own players one month of salary, as well as their portion of the winnings for the team’s second-place finish; all of this money was then donated to the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Montreal. But it was the death threat Giuseppe tweeted to a fellow CS:GO professional player that got him suspended.”
They have also turned up late before for a game with CLG but managed to avoid getting penalized. Later, one of the CLG players, Pujan Mehta, left a tweet saying the worst part of the day was losing to a team on which 3 players were hungover.
Brazilian Vito “kNgV” Giuseppe instantly retaliated, threatening proof or else death to the other player. Negative comments and accusations of non-professionalism were there in an instant.
kNgV was eventually kicked as well as HEN1 and LUCAS1 for being unprofessional. Ironic, really, because the hangover line was just a joke, as follows:
Getting in trouble and losing the game because of losing the first map was sad, but it did produce probably the most iconic tweet so far that once again illustrates the point of this article:
Dreamhack Montreal Champions! Not the final we wanted but rules are rules! — Philip Aistrup (@aizylife) September 10, 2017
Video: A Compliation Of Epic Bans in CS
Below we list the most epic bans in CS history, a video compilation. In addition, these bans are related to cheats.
emilio – VAC ban live on air
Valve Anti-Cheat is designed so that disqualification doesn’t happen immediately but at some random time. So, witnessing a VAC ban live on air was a unique event. Joel “Emilio” Mako unlocked this achievement. The Swede was kicked from the server during a match between Team Property and HellRaisers at Fragbite Masters. After that incident, he tried his best at VALORANT but it was unsuccessful. Interestingly, in the same match, s1mple, who had previously received a ban from ESL, was playing for HellRaisers. But Sasha, as we see, redeemed himself and made the most of his second chance.
Flex: banned live during ESEA
Always check the people you play with. ESP learned this the hard way when Flex, who was called in as a stand-in for a couple of matches, got detected by the ESEA Anti-Cheat system. At that point, ESP was leading 8:2, and despite Flex being at the bottom of the scoreboard, he likely provided some really valuable information. The esports fate of Flex after that remains unknown.
Forsaken: banned for cheating at LAN tournament
Anyone can cheat online, but only few dare to cheat at a LAN tournament. After all, you might get punched in the face for it. Nevertheless, a huge scandal occurred at a LAN tournament in India. Nihil “Forsaken” Kumawat, representing OpTic India, was caught in an extremely flamboyant manner. Not only did he not hide his aim hack very well, but also, during the match, a referee found cheating software named word.exe on his computer! Since then, word.exe has become a meme in the CS community, and Forsaken was immediately kicked out of OpTic India along with the whole team.
KQLY: VAC banned days before Major
Arguably, the most prestigious banned player in recent Counter-Strike history is Hovik “KQLY” Tovmassian. He played in the semifinals of ESL One Cologne 2014 and received his VAC ban a few days before DreamHack Winter 2014. As a result, Titan lost their slot at the Major, and everything went south for it since then. A year later, the organization couldn’t deal with all the damage and shut down.
ZoneR: coaches can be banned, too!
One of the biggest scandals in recent years was coaches abusing a bug that allowed them to be in a random spot on the map and effectively gather information. The abuse was discovered through demos from coaches, and after a massive investigation, it was revealed that several dozen coaches had encountered this bug. Not all of them intentionally used it, and the criteria for disqualification by ESIC raise questions, but one person who is guilty without any doubt is Alexander “ZoneR” Bogatyrev. He actively abused the bug, aiding Hard Legion players, for which he received a permanent ban from Valve events.
All these cases show that cheating won’t lead you to success. Play fair, and most importantly, enjoy the game!
